First
by nancystagerat
Summary: She feels his gloved hand on her cheek and he’s drawing her closer and she angles her face and suddenly those frozen blue lips of his don’t seem cold anymore at all. R/T oneshot, mid-OotP.


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A/N: Here, have a bit of R/T smut that's been sitting on my hard drive for far too long. I'm blaming mrscribble for the kick in the butt that made me post this fic anywhere, and the band The Weepies, because I've been listening to them far too much to be healthy and it's partially their fault this got its finishing tweaks. So thanks and I hope you all like it :3

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_First_

Snow reflects watery moonlight through the threadbare curtains and her feet freeze against the floorboards and his lips leave delicate kisses along her collarbone and he's sliding his hands beneath her sweater and she shivers and the room isn't _nearly_ dark enough and she has never been so very, very scared in her life.

His warm hands push the hem of her purple jumper higher and she raises her arms, gasps as cold air mingles with his breath against bare skin. Shivers erupt everywhere and his too-gentle fingers find the clasp at the back of her bra and she has to back herself against the bed to escape, or to call him after her, she can't decide. Her hands slide his shirt from his arms without being told to and trace his face and pull him closer and she realizes she has no idea what she's doing as his earnest lips mold themselves to hers, seeking something she doesn't really know how to give. Her kiss is just as hungry and it scares her and thrills her that she could want something so badly she fears it.

He pushes her against the pillows and the snow-light makes his shoulders seem to glow and she almost doesn't feel the sheets against her back, drinks in the sight of his scarred and gilded skin and almost forgets that she's never done this before and doesn't know how to make him feel the things he's stirring in her.

* * *

"Wotcher, you." Tonks holds out a bottle of butterbeer and a scarf and he takes them, wrapping the scarf around his neck and mouth. "I thought you looked a bit cold."

Remus adjusts his gloves and smiles. "Freezing, actually." He brushes the snow off the back railing and with a flourish gestures for her to sit. "So, what brings you out into the back garden wilds?"

"Sirius and Dung decided Firewhiskey was the best way to warm up a winter night, and Bill Weasley started them singing some bawdy song about a one-armed witch and a goblin with spattergroit." Tonks laughs, sitting in the offered space of railing, and extricates a desiccated bramble from the laces of her shoe.

"That's a new one," he replies, pulling his coat tighter against the wind, and sits beside her. "I'm much more familiar with the one about the centaur and the laryngitic contortionist."

He chuckles at the face she makes when images start floating across her mind and Tonks' face reddens; she hopes he thinks it's just because of the cold. They've been seeing each other for months, now; he shouldn't make her blush like that anymore. She pulls a pair of violent green earmuffs from her pocket and plunks them over her ears, a would-be guise. He looks away long enough to take a swig of butterbeer and she catches herself staring. "Maybe hot chocolate might've been a more prudent choice of beverage," he says, but cuts off her attempted apology. "Wouldn't have stayed hot for long out here, though, would it?"

"Then we'll make some later," she chirps. "How long've you _been_ out here, by the way?" All of a sudden she finds the snowflakes scattered on her rainbow mittens extremely fascinating.

"Not terribly long," he says. Tonks knows it's a lie; his face and the tips of his ears are pink and blotchy from the wind. It's the most color she's ever seen in his face. She gives him a very Molly-ish look. "Not long enough to become an ice sculpture, at least," he amends. "I've a little longer before I freeze into a decorative garden figurine."

"You _do_ look a little bit frostbitten," Tonks giggles, brushing the dusting of snow from his fringe. His lips are turning blue. "Just there…"

She feels his gloved hand on her cheek and he's drawing her closer and she angles her face and suddenly those frozen blue lips of his don't seem cold anymore at all.

* * *

He pulls his mouth away and she tries to follow. His hands are braced on either side of her and her lips feel swollen and well-kissed and she wants to pull his face back down and kiss him 'til she can't breathe anymore, but his hands are tracing maddening patterns on her bare sides and he dips his head into the curve of her neck, lips opening and closing against her throat. Gooseflesh ripples all over her and she finds she can no longer catch her breath if she wanted to. Metal clinks somewhere and his belt is undone before she realizes hers are the fingers working his trousers lower on his hips. Fear rushes its jagged way up and down her spine, but it's a _good_ kind of fear and she feels lightheaded and nervous and pathetically naïve as he moans into her shoulder, his arms pulling her flush against him as his mouth probes lower, into the dip below her throat, lower still.

She shouldn't want this so badly, not when five minutes ago she was nearly paralyzed by her own panic. His lips and hands have done quite a job of convincing her thus far before she notices how one of her hands has been awkwardly stroking his hair, the other fisted in the sheets beneath her, white-knuckled and clenched against the waves of…of _something_ delightful and terrifying and oh so electric that he's sent lighting up every last nerve in her body. But by now she's divested him of his trousers and his mouth continues its slow, languid descent, pausing to tease at the points of her nipples, smiling against the flush rising under the swell of her breasts, kissing and licking and nipping at her, lower and lower still until she feels him slide her jeans over her hips—_when did he get the buttons undone?_—and he slips his fingers under the lacy edge of her panties, asking her permission…

Which she gives in the arch of her back, her hand fisted in his hair. A blaze of sudden terror steals all the air in her lungs then gives it back as the last of her clothing is pulled away and forgotten, and she gasps and for the moment can't remember how or why she had been scared of these things he's been doing and giving and showing so gently to her.

* * *

She adjusts herself on the railing to better reach his lips and accidentally kicks the remains of a rosebush that sends frothy mounds of snow flying up onto their legs. They startle away from each other, feeling the sudden freezing wet clots seeping through pant legs and socks and Tonks almost falls from her perch into the snowdrift behind the railing. She would've done, if Remus hadn't grabbed her arms and yanked her back to the steps. And thrust her right into _his_ arms, she thinks, now that they've had a moment to recover. They stand like that for the shortest little eternity, Tonks blushing like mad and trying in vain to morph the color from her cheeks; she can't quite concentrate enough to make it leave, he's got her so bloody well flustered. She doubts most other witches still feel this pitifully giddy with the man they've been seeing for three months.

Granted, though, three months into her relationship with Remus is territory miles behind what she suspects to be _normal_ three-month territory. He's still very tentative with her; she's noticed this on more than one occasion. Sure, he teases her the same way he'd done when she met him, still makes cracks whenever she does something stupid; Tonks would have been rather disappointed if he didn't. But he's kept things slow, and this seems to have stunted her ability to control her morphs—and the rest of her emotions—around him.

"I'd be perfectly content to stand with you like this for the remainder of the night, Nymphadora," Remus says into her hair, "but my socks are freezing to my feet."

Her little bubble crashes down and Tonks springs away from him, only now feeling the snow-wet fabric against her own feet and legs, sluggish realization dawning like a bucket of ice down her back. "Right! Sorry, let's go inside. You take those socks off, I'll make tea or hot chocolate or something—"

He gets the backdoor and beckons her in first. "After you."

Tonks strips off her coat and hunts for a place to throw it, if only to hide her still-red face from eyes she knows will smile like a mischievous teenager and undo the last of any defenses she's still got. Choosing the broom closet doorknob as an impromptu coat rack, she kicks her shoes off by the kitchen fire and peels off wet and lurid purple socks emblazoned with snidgets. Remus eyes them with amused distaste.

"How many times have I told you, darling, _argyle_ is the height of wizarding sock fashion these days," he laughs, likewise pulling off his own socks and laying them out beside hers. They are thin and well-worn. "Especially distressed ones." His inviting brown eyes draw her in and she can't help but laugh.

"I'll keep that in mind next time I'm off hunting for fashionable footwear. Unless you've got a pair you're willing to let a sorely behind-the-times witch borrow for a bit."

"Alas, dear girl, I'm very attached to these socks, you see. Very sentimental, had them for years and all that. Though I've a spare arm I'd be willing to lend to warm you up with instead." And with that he slides his arm about her shoulders and Tonks finds herself warming in certain places an arm about the shoulders should have no right to warm. She leans against his side and nudges him towards the table with her hip.

"Don't look now, but I think Sirius and Mundungus left us a present, if you're up for a bit of extra heat in your hot chocolate." The half-drained bottle of firewhiskey lays stoppered on its side, forgotten, on the counter.

Tonks leaves his side to search the cupboards for the slab of Honeyduke's Best she'd hidden behind a box of soap flakes and a carton of baking powder. Remus conjures a bottle of milk from elsewhere in the room, and sets to heating it over the fire. She admires him for a moment, leaning back against the table and letting her eyes wander up and down his back. He melts the chocolate into the milk, stirring until tendrils of the smooth sweet scent float about the room and she commits to memory the sight of him and smell of chocolate blending into one.

Their drink finished, Remus pours just enough liquor into the pot that it won't adulterate the taste, and divides it among their two oversized mugs. Tonks scoots herself close against his side, cradles her mug between her hands, and smiles into the steam curling around her face.

Maybe it's the lateness of the night, maybe the alcohol (though there wasn't even enough to get her tipsy), but something in his eyes seems to have deepened in the last hour. The kisses he steals taste less and less like chocolate and more like something else, something best kept behind closed doors, drunk with heady abandon and promises whispered in the dark. His fingers slip beneath the hem of her sweater and Tonks lets herself enjoy the shiver it sends up her spine, his arm around her waist protective, possessive, and just for a bit she can hope that he wants her this way. Possessive. _His_. She wants so much to be that one small word.

* * *

She has never felt so exposed in her life, naked and pinned beneath the only man who's could ever push her so high or break her so easily, never in a million years dreamed he would hold her like this on what had been such an unremarkable night, but his lips are working their delicate magic in filigree strings of kisses across her belly and hips and he's making her shudder with muted fear in ways she's never known could feel so _good_. She wants to wonder how many women there've been before her, how many it took to teach him to be as gentle and sure as he is, but this is _hers_ tonight and she will not let phantoms into that secret place she's found in him, not now. He works his way back up the expanse of her abdomen, kissing just as slow and languid as he'd done on his way down and he pauses in places that had made her squirm before and her breath comes quick and ragged and she knows now she will fight with all she is to be the last he ever needs.

His muscles are cords beneath his skin, stronger than she's ever felt him holding her before, belying the delicacy with which his mouth and hands are working against her body and she doesn't feel the draft from the old windows or see the crescent bite scar torn and jagged on his shoulder as this wonderful heat steals through her and sets her nerves singing and begging for more of his sweet attention. Finally he's close enough again and she can pull his head down to hers and she kisses him hard and pleading and wraps her legs around him and now it's _his_ turn to draw breath in through his teeth, _his_ mouth yielding and soft under hers and her heart beats all the faster because _she_ is now the one returning the pleasures he'd been so meticulous in giving her.

The grey moonlight filtering in does not feel cold, not with skin so deliciously hot against skin and his face dipped close to her, their foreheads resting together, his soft brown hair falling into faces gilt silver in the snow's reflection as his body moves against her and oh god, she feels him pressing hot and fevered to her hips and her fear comes flooding back as swiftly as it left. Endless what-ifs ripple half-formed through her head and she clings to his shoulders as if he can protect her from herself, his kiss against her throat a seal, a guard against the flood of insecurities her just being here should have vanished long ago. His eyes are dusky, clouded with desire and yet shy, afraid he's asked too much of her but now she will not let him back away, not when she's waited and wanted and hoped for him to want her here like this, not when he's finally trusted her and made her feel so stunningly complete beneath the comfortable press of his weight.

She rocks her hips into his, offers what she's hoped he's wanted and wants so much to give him and she is scared but not of him, not of this anymore.

* * *

"I should really go," Tonks says, having cleared her head enough somewhere along the line to register the faint two AM gong of the Black family clock. _Two AM_. She sighs. _Two AM five days before the full moon_. Slowly she eases out from under his arm, hating that she has to remove her cheek from where it's pillowed on his shoulder, but he has more important things to contend with than a selfish witch with bad socks keeping him from the rest he'll need the next few days, and after.

Remus, on the other hand, does not take his arm away. He makes no move to shift the fragile balance they've achieved.

"I'd rather you didn't," he rasps, messy fringe hiding his eyes, and her heart stops.

"Then I won't."

* * *

They are both tentative now, careful and shy and _is this okay_ and _does it hurt_ and _are you sure you want…?_ The last words fade away as the tears spring to her eyes and he tries to pull away but she holds him with all the strength she has, and yes it hurts and yes she's a bit scared but no she will not let him stop this now.

_I want you. _

He moves against her, drawn close by her legs and soon it does not hurt so badly anymore. The few tears left dry on her face and he kisses them away, rocks his hips to hers and soon she answers with motions of her own, slow and sweet and guiding as they coax each other with gentle intent to go on.

Snow falls outside but here it cannot touch them, it is no longer cold and there's no longer any fears or doubts or darkness in the press of bodies and fevered kisses upon rosy skin. Instead they seep into each other, pulled close and taking pleasure each in the tender urging of the other, each kiss and caress deliberate as they ease together and away over and over again, wondering and marvelous and lost to the intoxication of each other. Until finally, what feels like delicious and impossible agonizing lifetimes later, heat rises high in them and burns and melts to liquid between bodies sticky with sweat as finally he turns to silk inside her and she convulses, held tight and warm and safe within his arms. And they can only breathe here, bathed in silver, a tangle of limbs and love and reverent whispered promises, touched by light fingertips and kissed softly by lips that will not have moved away by morning.


End file.
